chord progressions - Fm to Bb, sounds different to Cm to F?

Question

I recently started trying my hand at composition and could not figure out why the two chords progressions sounds different:1. F minor followed by B flat major, which is an interval of a 4th2. C minor followed by F major, which is also an interval of a 4th.I am not sure if my hearing is confused, but 1 sounds better than 2.I thought 1 and 2 should be the same given that they are the same interval and just transposed?**Edit**: Thanks for all the answers! To clarify, I am testing this on a piano (simulated pianoteq / midi vpc1). All chords are in root position, and in the same octave.Reading through the replies I just wanted to clarify that I am not referring to the "timbre" (read - "harmonic" in music engineer terms) of the instrument due to register differences or other instrument differences, e.g. the difference between a middle C on a Yamaha vs middle C on a Bluthner.I guess the question I wanted to ask could be better phrased as "if we used computer software to lower the frequency of (1) to (2), would the two chords sound the same"? Disregarding any differences due to frequency, are the quality of (1) and (2) theoretically the same?Looking at the different note frequencies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies), the differences between each semitone is not uniform. The frequency doubles across each octave, but, the notes are distributed unevenly - difference between middle C and C# is 15.557Hz, where as the difference between D and D# is 17.462Hz. If this is the case, how can (1) and (2) "sound the same" / have the same "quality"?*Is the difference between (1) and (2) due to "temperament"?***Edit 2**: Wow - I did not think through my last edit. As Patrx2 points out, the frequencies are geometric so the ratio remains constant (not the difference). Not sure why I did not spot this as octaves are clearly a doubling of the frequencies... I think I must have been imagining things as by all accounts, (1) and (2) should sound the same. Thanks again!

Answer 1

Well, your entire question depends on timbre. Different registers of pianos have different timbres, even as sine waves. In addition, the sound used and put in electric pianos by companies such as Yamaha are going to be vastly different based on the acoustic samples they used. Simply pitching the notes down to temperament will distort the timbre as the samples are based on a very specific overtone series from the acoustic instrument, which will be out of tune with itself if you pitch it down. The progressions will sound different no matter what. However, pitching down singular sine waves will make the progressions sound the exact same as they are the exact same. However, this does not apply in 12-tone eq or chromatic just intonation. The chords are really fundamentally different from a frequency perspective in both temperaments.